Annotated Bibliography/Horror films

Lauren hau 

Professor Jewell 

English 1101 

10/31/19 

Annotated bibliography  

Fusco, Jon, “watch: How the conjuring director James Wan dilivers the perfect jump scare” , october 28, 2016 

 In the movie The Conjuring, director James Wan knew exactly how to scare the audience with his famous and well known jump scares. When jump scares are used effectively, this causes the audience to feel like they’re stupid and didn’t see it coming. James wan directed movies such as Insidious and Saw and through his experience he’s created plenty of famous jump scares including the ones in the conjuring. When trying to scare the audience you have to come up with new ways of doing so. James Wan follows the philosophy of fully engaging his audience so that it is easy to scare them while they’re lost in the scene. He believes that if you can use these strategies and scare the audience unexpectedly than you’ve earned it as a film maker.            

“Analyzing the Ways the Director Builds Suspense and Scares the Audience in the Film Jaws.” 123HelpMe.com. 28 Oct 2019  

In the movie Jaws we are well aware of a killer shark on the loose and this shark is the main reason for the movie and what makes it terrifying. Director Stephan Spielberg creates suspense by using both camera and music very effectively. The audience is led to assume that the shark is looking for something because the music gets louder every second until it reaches its crescendo. This is what makes the audience sit at the edge of their seat wondering what might happen next. Stephan Spielberg built the suspense in the movie by the percussion of volume and different sounds that might startle the audience making them think that something is going to occur. Stephan Spielberg starts the movie off with music and as it picks up the tempo so does our heartbeat and he wanted us to feel the tension right away.                                                                                                            

Rodriguez, Ashley “one of the creepiest scenes from Annabelle:creation came from a dream the director had” August 15, 2017 

Director David F. Sandberg had dreamt one of the scariest scenes from Annabelle creation and wrote it down once he woke upon In this scene there’s a little girl named Linda and she shoots a ball through a bedroom doorway and when she attempts to reel it back, finds that it has been seized by the darkness- presumably by the demon haunting her home. Sandberg found this scene to be suspenseful for the audience and felt he had to include this scene from his dream. Maxine Alexandre, cinematographer states, “Annabelle never moves. There is this rule about Annabelle, so basically the darkness is the shadows of the demon moving through the space. And you are totally scared or freaked out about that”. This shows how Director David Sandberg and cinematographer Maxine Alexandre came together and built this great suspension throughout the movie for the audience. 

The selvedge yard “The shining, Kubricks masterpiece of suspense, symbolism, sets and steadicam” March 10, 2017 

In the filming of The shining, director Kubrick turned Stephan king’s novel into a film masterpieace. In the making of this movie Kubrick was very picky in how he wanted this film to be presented. The first steps was to go around America photographing hotels which might be suitable for the story. Kubrick wanted the hotel to look authentic rather than the traditional spooky movie hotels. He wanted the audience to get a different feel and show them what not to expect because in this way they would get a different sense of fear. “The hotels labyrinthine layout and huge rooms, I believed, would alone provide an eerie enough atmosphere. This realistic approach was also followed by lighting.” Kubrick took things even further when he smoothly glided the audience through the halls and the treacherous hedge maze of the overlook hotel. Garret Brown made some steadicam inventions that Kubrick used for the filming of this film and he says “The shining was an opportunity to bear down on technique that you wouldn’t find anywhere else”. You could tell that there was a significant amount of time and effort put into this movie so that the audience could stay in a state of shock after watching the film. It was well put together and is still considered one of the scariest horror movies today. 

 

Adamson, Connor “from book to screen: Children of the corn” June 4, 2018 

Children of the corn is one of Stephan Kings popular novels and it takes a different turn than most horror movies take. The author states “The story uses many themes present in kings work; religion gone crazy, the fever of group mentality, and supernatural demonic entities. King likes to follow children as well, and they are obviously a big part of this story.” I find children of the corn to be somewhat exotic in a sense because it’s not every horror film you have religious/ demonic children wanting to kill every adult they see. In this film what really sparks the audience is how a group of kids come together and form a cult and follow this religious sequel in which once they turn into an adult which is the age of 18, they must sacrifice their lives and kill themselves for “He who walks behind the rows”. Stephan king chose to have children as the protagonist in this film because most horror movies have scary monsters and killer adults. Children are usually seen as innocent and delicate human beings but king turns them into the monsters and this gives the audience a feeling of shock and feeds into their fears. 

 

 

Renee V, “How Wes Craven prepped his audience for pain in ‘A nightmare on elm street’, September 29, 2016 

Wes Craven, director of the famous film A nightmare on elm street made sure that the audience was in a state of shock during and after watching the film. He wanted the audience to actually have nightmares about it and maybe have the character himself pop up in their dreams. The author states “We already know what makes a horror film scary, a ghoulish face, blood and guts, a loud sound, but how do we build up the tension that precedes those scares?”  Wes craven creates suspense by using sound and visual motifs in A nightmare on elm street to subtly communicate “pain infliction” when Freddy sliced and diced his way through his sleepy teenage victims. Craven used several elements to tap into fear of physical pain, like bold white imagery, striped motifs that mimicked Freddy’s sweater, the color red and materials that served as metaphors for flesh. When sounds and imagery fit the scene it creates tension for the audience and specific colors like red will automatically make us think about blood and there isn’t anything pleasant about blood unless you’re donating it. 

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